And as an extra bonus I screwed up the date o this post, so it's late.

This past weekend was not conducive to writing about WoW. I played Civ 4 in my spare time and didn't have much of that. My drafts weren't quite what I wanted. I don't like to post them early and screw up an idea I liked; I'd feel too repetitive to return to an idea to take another crack at it just because I failed at writing the first time around. A different angle is fine, I do that a lot, but pure repetition feels wrong.

So I ended up with filler posts. Poker on Sunday and Whiny Post Day post on Monday. The second one wasn't totally terrible, since I had somehow mixed up my days and felt it needed some more thought. Or some other nights when I just sort of talk about the previous night's raid. I don't like those. They're just not what I do. That sounds rather stupid to say, but maybe you get what I mean. If someone analyzed my normal posts they could get some idea what I'm playing; since my topics are affected by my alt or raid at the time, but I feel too much like a diary blogger if I talk directly about recent experiences. Also who cares? Twitter is bad enough, but Twitter with a multi-hour delay pretending to be a real post? No thanks.

I guess I've put myself in a box. I post every day, so to not post feels like I'm breaking my own rules. Then there's Saturday. To be honest, I don't really know what the theme is meant to be. The first posts I wrote never actually got published. They were a sort of joke about people whose economic decisions had benefited me and which would indirectly teach something useful. The first was about bold bloodstones. Somehow since then it has turned into a general "talk about a person or type or person" post which isn't really distinct from what I'd post during the week. I have even less clue what Sunday is supposed to be. Or why I bother to post then. It's not a big blog-reading day for most people apparently.

Possibly worse than filler posts are having more than one in a day. It's overwhelming. Even worse is when there are two one day and none the next. Spread them out a bit. But maybe that's artificial.

Two filler posts this week and two in one day? I should lose my license. Which reminds me, that seems like the sort of thing they'd require in Australia: blog licenses. I used to think it was some big free place; rough and liberated by being populated by the offspring of prisoners and British rejects. Turns out they've got all sorts of government interference in their media. I didn't really realize they had a government. Not cool! I'd hear about this or that election, but it never seemed like it meant anything. Like they were an elected version of the British royalty: useless and unneeded for anything but ceremonial purposes. Please no one tell me the royalty have any power. I like them as a pointless drain on government resources used to prop up dying memories of empire and glory.

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comments:

Anonymous
said...

The royal family are like living museum exhibits these days. They cost a lot to maintain but apparently the net effect is good for the economy because they generate tourism.I'd still vote to get rid of them if I could. I just don't like the idea of unearned privilege at the taxpayer's expense.Especially when Prince Charles starts lecturing us peasants on the benefits of organic farming and homeopathy.

The monarch of England is the head of state of both the United Kingdom and all its commonwealths, including Australia, which means they have all sorts of interesting powers that are simply not exercised as a matter of courtesy.

If she cared to, Queen Elizabeth (or more practically her assigned governor-general) could tell Australia, to pick the most conspicuous example, to find a new prime minister owing to not approving of the current one. And in 1975, exactly this happened.

@pugnacious priest. Correct, but to be more precise, the Governor-General cannot independently exercise any power to 'veto' Australian legislation; nor can the Queen herself. The Constitution of Australia provides for the Royal Assent to be given to laws by the G-G acting under advice of the Ministers of the State, or rather, the Federal Executive Council. Which is to say, if the PM and Cabinet tell him 'This should be a law' he cannot withhold consent.

@Labrat. Whilst the Queen is Australia's head of state, she has no 'interesting powers' exercisable in Australia, under our Constitution or laws. The investiture of the Royal prerogative in the G-G gives them no further powers than as specified in the Constitution. The example that you use of the 1975 Whitlam dismissal was not because Kerr (the G-G at the time) did not approve of Whitlam (the PM at the time) but because he was exercising his constitutional powers to resolve a deadlock between the Houses of Parliament.

I would contend, however, that he acted ultra vires, although it may have appeared to be within constitutional convention at the time (e.g. Kerr had petitioned the Chief Justice of the High Court for an advisory opinion on a constitutional matter, and the appointment of Qld and NSW senators from different parties to the incumbents).

This is not a critique of the blog by far, just a suggestion from someone who is all too familiar with the issue.

Get off the treadmill. Throw away the posting schedule and post when you think you have a real gem. It's either that or death to a burnout.

You are already posting about how you post. Next in line are rants about someone else who posts about how he posts. Then half-baked, incoherent emo posts with the words "I am really stressed out, and am only posting because I feel I have to" written all over them.

To clarify: the problem is not the frequency of posts, the problem is the feeling that you have to post every day. Take this feeling over the corner and shoot it in the head. After you do this, you will have lulls, but on some weeks you will actually end up posting more than you are posting now.

One more suggestion (sorry for having too many): if you decide to abandon the posting schedule, *don't* make a lengthy post about it. Post a one-liner (eg, "I'll be back") and take a week of blogging vacations. This helps, a lot.

@Anonymouses: That post was written on and for Whiny Post Day. Do not use it as evidence of burnout, boredom, or anything else. Instead it just means I was very enthusiastic about the day. It's a good thing.

Yes, well, quick and glib description does that to history- yes, I do know what actually happened. And from the perspective of an Ammerican, the ability to remove another nation's elected leader is an extremely interesting power indeed.